


Devotion, In the End

by Shinaka



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinaka/pseuds/Shinaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jounouchi and Anzu's relationship, as set in an AU, explored through 30 different themes and kinds of kisses. Originally started on July 13, 2008.</p><p>Anzu is a wallflower and Jounouchi is a delinquent, and life makes them its playthings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Theme 1 - Look over here

**Author's Note:**

> Theme #1: Look over here - This fill features a world in which Anzu meets Jounouchi before Yuugi and is two years younger than Jounouchi. She is also more worn down due to her home circumstances, which yes, I took liberties with based on the scant information canon provides. However, this still takes place in the regular YGO! universe. I will definitely write follow-ups to this fill using the other themes, so don't think you won't see this version of the characters ever again!

_One_. She walks for the first time, short legs wobbly on the carpet. But her parents are too busy fussing over the details of a business dinner to see her slip and kiss the carpet, and afterwards, return to crawling along the wall painted with fading flowers.

~ ~ ~

 _Two_. She does not cry as her mother drives the shopping cart past the candy aisle. For she knows her mother will only give her a hard stare before her eyes return to the grocery list in her hand and she sits still and quiet in the cart before this knowledge.

~ ~ ~

 _Three_. She writes her first sentence on her bedroom wall in crayon: “Only Anzu here.”

~ ~ ~

 _Four_. She lifts chubby legs into the air as her teacher claps and tells her _Excellent, now try a spin, Mazaki-san_ but she falters for a moment when she sees her mother smiling at her from outside the studio window – pale hands clasped to her chest and eyes shining  – until she realizes the woman is taller and has lines around her mouth her mother never had, and that there is another girl behind Anzu who is also learning how to dance, and she remembers then to turn on her toes and away from the mother beaming at her child. 

~ ~ ~ 

 _Five_. She waits in the corner for her teacher to call on her to introduce herself, but her teacher overlooks her and never does call on her later.

~ ~ ~

 _Six_. She wonders if it is wrong to give the Mother’s Day gift she made at school – a scribbled stick figure with voluminous red hair and _Mom_ scrawled across the figure’s lanky frame – to the fire burning blue on the stove.

~ ~ ~

 _Seven_. She is used to boys and girls staring past her when they are choosing classmates for their teams in P.E. and to her teacher shaking his head at her when she is the last one left standing once again.

~ ~ ~

 _Eight_. “Dear Diary,” she writes in her new journal. “I’m home alone and Dad left me about seventy-thousand yen. Mom says they’ll be gone for a month or two on a trip to the States. This won’t going to be any different than when they were at home though.”

~ ~ ~

  _Nine_. She dances through the playground after school until the sun dips under the horizon and no light remains to guide her feet because there is no one home anyway and she might as well dance the day away.

~ ~ ~

 _Ten_. “Dear Diary Number 3,” the page begins. Then smears of blue-into-purple (something wet had touched the page) and the few words that can be read from the inky haze are _Why_ , _alone again_ , _ignored_ , and **_lonely_**.

~ ~ ~

 _Eleven_. She freezes in her chair when her father informs her he will no longer pay for her dancing lessons and – in the same breath – mentions a vacation with her mother in Hawaii next weekend and _please keep the house clean while we’re away, Anzu._

~ ~ ~

 _Twelve_. She feels as if somebody has scooped out something important from her body and when she dances now, she closes her eyes and let the tears fall.

~ ~ ~

 _Thirteen._ His name is Jounouchi and his head is kissing the fence that separates them – his mussed, dirty self near the jungle gym from her prim form sitting on the swing – and _he is looking at her_ as if they have something in common.

And they do have something in common, she realizes. After all, they are both in a long-empty playground, running close to curfew and the police making their calls for children to go home, and they are both not budging an inch from where they are and they are both looking at each other through the chain links of the fence.

She does not know then, but he will change everything.


	2. Theme 25 - Fence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme #25: Fence - Continues from the last fill/chapter. Anzu and Jounouchi talk across a fence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a continuation.
> 
> Anyways, if this is starting to sound like my old work on FF.Net, [She was a wallflower](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2993790/1/She-was-a-wallflower) (which I highly doubt many here have read due to how old it is, which is totally understandable), it is on purpose. I've always intended this 30kisses set to follow that plot, but in a more freeform manner.

Behind the fence, the boy stares at an Anzu covered by links of twisted steel.

 

“Gonna stop looking at me anytime soon?” He tilts his head but doesn’t move.

 

She studies his ratty green jacket, his worn gray sneakers, his scratched-up fists resting on the wire, the bruise under his left eye.  _Ah, a delinquent,_  she thinks.

 

But she’s not scared at all – in fact, she wants to laugh.  _A delinquent in a kiddie park. Talking to **me**._  


 

Instead, she says, “And you? Don’t you got somebody to beat up?” She wants to giggle but that doesn’t seem quite appropriate - though “appropriate” is a word that has seemingly no place here - so she tries on a smirk. It’s an ill fit for her face but it’s not like the boy will know that.

 

“Nah, that was yesterday.” The blond waves a flippant hand. 

 

“And what are you doing here at this time? You heard the alarms, didn't you? Be a good kid and go home. Spend your time doing homework instead of staring at guys like me – though I’ll admit I’ll understand because I am quite handsome.” He winks at her.

 

“Don’t have homework.” The smirk turns into a grin, wide and held up by the force of her stifled laughter. 

 

“A kid-watching hobby then? Lucky you’re a girl because if I tried that, the police would nail me as a pedo,” the delinquent says. A joke with an edge that’s accompanied by laughter that belies the weight of stereotypes and frustration.

 

Anzu shakes her head. “That’s not my thing at all.”

 

But then she thinks, what is her “thing” then? She has no friends, hobbies, or much of a family. She’s not in dancing classes anymore, so she’s not a “dancer," so to speak. All she does in the park though is revisit memories and if that’s a “thing," then she is an old, old thirteen year old, boring and depressing.

 

“So you just sit here all day? No offense, but that’s kinda sad.” He slides down to the ground to sit cross-legged.

 

“I guess.” Anzu idly jingles the chains of her swing.

 

She doesn't know him at all but he’s given Anzu her first chance to be honest. Equivocal words were what she always fed her parents and teachers - “Okay, I think”, “That’ll be all right with me, I guess”, “I don’t know but maybe” - but she can do something different for once.

 

Of course, Anzu hesitates. Her bravado leaves, letting the blond get a good look at her, lonely and scared. Or he could just be waiting for an answer, and is just being politely attentive. Either way, she’s not used to this sudden  _interest_  and she entertains the idea of running and not looking back.

 

But in the end, there’s nothing to look forward to if she runs.

 

“No, you’re right,” she says slowly. "It is sad."

 

(Months later, Jounouchi tells her how he was creeped out by how she laughed and laughed after her proclamation. How lost to the world she seemed. How he was tempted to just get up and walk away from the crazy girl. But he decided to stay because he, too, also had nothing to do and was just as sad and desperate as her.)

 

After Anzu’s laughter finally fades, the boy stands up. “Then let’s do something else then.” 

 

Her stomach hurts from laughing so much and it also hurts to breathe, so she simply nods. She wonders briefly what he has in mind, but her train of thought immediately breaks off as the boy begins to climb the fence in between them.

 

The wire fence is easily three times his height and more but the boy grabs the links and hoists himself up with ease. Anzu’s eyes widen and she flies from the swing to stand next to the fence. He can’t possibly be doing something this idiotic but those delinquent muscles  _are_ good for something other than fighting, and he zooms up the fence.

 

“Are you stupid? What do you think you’re doing?!”

 

He doesn’t answer. He’s too focused on climbing the damn thing but that doesn’t stop Anzu from screaming.

 

“There’s a gate right over there! I’ll just unlock it for you, so can you just stop this?!”

 

“Seriously, how are you going to get down?!”

 

“It’s gonna really hurt when you fall!”

 

When the delinquent finally reaches the top, he raises and moves his legs so they can curl over the top of the fence, allowing him to sit with his legs dangling above Anzu’s head. To her fury, he’s smiling at her as if he doesn’t have a drop to worry about. 

 

“Man, it’s funny seeing you all riled up like this,” he says. When the older boy swings his legs, he ends up kicking the fence and making it rock.

 

Anzu yells, “Because you’re being a damn idiot!” She has half a mind to kick the steel wire hard enough to make him fall off because he clearly deserves it for making a random stranger worry about his health. The girl settles for shaking a fist instead.

 

He raises an eyebrow in response. “You’re gonna be punching me with that?”

 

Anzu blushes but she shakes her fist again nevertheless. “Can you even climb down from there?!”

 

She hasn’t been so angry in such a long time. Resignation she knows intimately and can pull out of her back pocket easily. Sadness is another familiar emotion, though that tends to come in fits and spurts that leave her reeling and curled up in bed for hours at a time. Even that feeling was becoming more remote to her everyday.

 

But it’s hard to be angry and stay angry when you’re by yourself nearly all the time.

 

The boy says, “Why would I even climb up if I don’t even know how to get back down?”

 

In one quick twist of his body, he’s facing the fence again but on Anzu’s side. The blond begins the process of climbing down, although more slowly and with more care. He looks down before letting go of one hand to grab onto a lower portion of the steel wire and then waits until that grip is steady before he lets go of his other hand. His feet follow the same process down the fence, too.

 

Anzu’s glad that the boy can’t see her face anymore due to his positioning on the fence because she’s sure she’s glowing bright red with embarrassment. He’s right, why else would he be even climbing if he wasn’t capable of doing so? She lets her fist uncrumple and go back to her side, as she dimly watches the blond slowly make his way down the fence.

 

“Bet you’re shocked down there,” he starts saying but stops awkwardly. “Er, what’s your name?”

 

“A-Anzu Mazaki.” The girl wants to hit herself for that tremor in her voice.

 

“Okay. Well, Anzu,” and her head snaps at this sudden familiarity from a boy whose name she’s yet to find out, “My name’s Katsuya Jounouchi. Nice to meet you!”

 

When Jounouchi turns his head around to smile at Anzu, several things happen.

 

One, his right hand lets go of the fence. That in and of itself, would not usually be a problem, as his other hand is still on the fence. But the girl is unused to seeing people climb down fences, so when she sees Jounouchi’s hand let go, she wildly points at it and shouts, “Your hand!”

 

Two, as Jounouchi turns to stare at his right hand, his left foot decides to lose its footing on the steel wire. The shock of having nothing under his foot when a moment ago there was something, drives Jounouchi to yelp loudly. In his panic, his left hand comes loose from the fence.

 

Three, Anzu screams and shields herself by bringing her arms in front of her face because Jounouchi is falling fast and fear keeps her from moving her feet to safety.

 

Lastly, their bodies kiss and then Anzu and Jounouchi are sprawled on the ground in pain.

 

(Later that night, after Anzu comes out of the ER with a cast on her right arm, Jounouchi nervously apologizes for what seems to be the hundredth time. He promises to pay for the medical fees yet again, but she refuses him firmly again.

 

But there is one thing he can do for her now that she’s out of the hospital and that’s ice cream. The blond asks if that’s all right but Anzu just smiles and drags him along to the nearest ice cream parlor.)

 

After the dazed state dissipates but before the pain sets in, Anzu simply turns her head to Jounouchi lying nearby and says, “How was that climb, huh?”

 

She begins to laugh again but this time it rings sweet to the boy’s ears. 


End file.
